The "Protection of minors during criminal proceedings" distance learning course was launched today with the participation of Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Davit Harutyunyan and Head of the Office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Armenia Tanya Radochay.

It was developed and introduced by the Justice Academy of the Republic of Armenia in co-operation with and with the support of the UNICEF. Deputy Minister of Justice Suren Krmoyan, Rector of the Justice Academy Sergey Arakelyan, judges, prosecutors, representatives of non-governmental organisations and others were also present at the presentation of the course.

Greeting the attendees, Minister Davit Harutyunyan highly appreciated the introduction of such a tool in the sector of juvenile justice and emphasised that this learning innovation will lead to its outcome in the future. "Step by step, we are enhancing the approach that we adopted to make justice for the rights of children more accessible and affordable, as well as to protect the rights of children during that period. By 2022, the legislation related to child offenders will be improved, and adoption of the relevant concept paper will help create special mechanisms for the rehabilitation and protection of child offenders, child witnesses and child victims of crime", said the Minister and, with regard to the sector-specific reforms, attached importance to the current activities that are being carried out by the operating Council for Juvenile Justice, which, according to Davit Harutyunyan, has already proved its effectiveness.

Head of the Office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Armenia Tanya Radochay expressed gratitude to the attendees for the constructive co-operation and noted that even though Armenia remains one of the countries with few minors deprived of liberty, it is important that continuous steps are being taken in the justice sector in order to improve protection of the rights of minors.

Let us mention that 37 judges and 125 prosecutors will participate in the first distance learning course.